


escape before time runs out

by aeterna_nox



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, Matter of Life and Death, Psychological Horror, Riddles, Spooky, Suspense, Thriller, darkish, escape room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26282827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeterna_nox/pseuds/aeterna_nox
Summary: Renjun and Jisung wake up to find themselves in a chilling escape room game. They not only have to attempt to escape the room but also escape from the clutches of death. Renjun has only five minutes to solve the puzzle in his room in order to prevent Jisung from plummeting to his death.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Park Jisung
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	escape before time runs out

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be only 500+ words long, but I got carried away with the idea haha. Also, for full immersion, I recommend you to listen to some dark cello music and a ticking of an old grandfather clock (totally not what I did while writing this while getting goosebumps).

Renjun wakes up groaning as he remembers the hard blow to the head that knocked him out. He looks around and finds himself in some sort of small room with wooden floors and walls. He makes a note of his surroundings: an empty wall bookshelf, a bookcase full of books with titles with numbers in them, three small whiteboards hung on the wall and a plaque next to it. Before he could read what it says, a monitor rises from the ground and turns on by itself. On the screen shows a boy with his head bent over, standing on a treadmill in an empty room. Renjun takes a closer look and his eyes widen when he realizes who that was.

“Jisung!!” 

The young boy startles awake and freaks out when he realizes that his ankles are bounded by metal claws to the treadmill.

“What the?! Where am I?!”

His voice sounds close as if he’s just in the next room somewhere. As Renjun is about to look for a hidden door, a loud voice booms over the speakers.

**“Huang Renjun, you have five minutes to save Player Park. The speed of the treadmill will increase every minute until it goes to full max.”**

Jisung looks up at the ceiling upon hearing the name. “Renjun Hyung? Are you here too?”

“Yes, I’m here!! Stay calm!!” Renjun shouts as loud as he could

Apart from the small platform that the treadmill was on, the floors in Jisung’s room begin to retract back to the walls.

Jisung clutches onto the handles of the treadmill tightly, watching in horror as he looks down at how deep the pits were. “What’s going on?!”

**“Time runs out and he will have no choice but to fall. Solve the riddle, place your four answers on the bookshelf on the wall, and save the boy. Tick-tock.”**

Loud ticks from a grandfather clock start to play, a timer appears on the screen of Renun’s monitor, and the treadmill in the other room starts moving at a slow pace as soon as Jisung’s ankles were released.

Renjun wastes no time and runs over to the plaque. There were hints at the bottom, but they confused him so he disregards it for the time being. He can probably solve the riddle without them anyway. Looking at each riddle, he decides to start from the bottom. “How do you lose the first round and gain even more the second round?” Renjun reads, loud and clear so Jisung could hear.

Jisung tries his best to stay calm as he walks on the treadmill while listening to his life tick away. “Sounds like a game? But what kind of game…?”

Renjun snaps his fingers, “A game of bets!”

“You’re right!! But hmm…lose and then win more the next round…” Repeating it over to himself, a lightbulb goes off in his head. “Double or nothing! Double or nothing! That’s how you win more! I remember from my dad’s favorite poker game show.”

“Park Jisung, you’re a genius!!” Renjun shouts, smile faltering a little as he never thought he would say those words. If Jisung’s life wasn’t at stake, he would probably be smirking right now. Since the code seems to involve numbers, he writes down the number 2 on the third plaque.

A minute passes, and Jisung’s treadmill increases the speed. He’s speed walking now. Renjun notices this and moves on to the next question quickly.

“To make a point, I have to tower over all and can see all the land beneath me.”

“That…sounds like me?” Jisung guesses, earning an eye roll from Renjun even in this situation.

Renjun uses his hands to help him visualize the description, getting an epiphany once he angles his hands to form a point in the shape of a triangle.

“It’s a mountain!!”

“But that’s not a number?!” Jisung shouts back in confusion.

“Whatever! We don’t have time to make second guesses!” Renjun retorts, quickly writing mountain in Korean on the second whiteboard.

“Okay, last one! Watch your way of using this, for it can be used for good or for evil. Is it money? Or power? What do you think, Jisung?”

As the timer drops down to three minutes, the speed increases and Jisung starts jogging. “I’m trying to think, but I’m also trying not to fall right now.”

Renjun whacks his head, trying to ignore the obnoxious sound of ticking along with the whirring of the treadmill. He knows that feeling stressed won’t get him anywhere, so he takes a deep breath and re-reads it over and over.

_Why did they phrase it like that?_

“Watch your…” His eyes widen when it hits him. “Watch your mouth! People can use it to say good or bad things!”

Despite being unsure, he scribbles down mouth on the first whiteboard anyways and steps back. Nothing happens. No code popping out, no nothing.

_Why wasn’t it working??_

On the verge of freaking out, Renjun looks back at the hints for direction. “Remember the most important part to helping the little ones grow. Sometimes the correct perspective isn’t always right.”

_Helping the little ones grow? Milk? Vegetables? No, that can’t be right…_

Another minute passes as he thinks, and Jisung tightens his hold on the handles as he starts running. Renjun throws his hands up in the air in frustration as his mind gets all frazzled up in a mess of both confusion and worry.

Noticing his silence, Jisung on the other end assumes that Renjun must have hit a dead end.

“H-hyung?”

“Yes?”

“The others might be here too. Go and save them, I’ll be...I’ll be okay. I’m not scared.” By the crack in his voice, Renjun can tell that he’s lying to make him feel better.

“No, I got this! I am not leaving without you!”

With Jisung’s words, he refocuses and tries to think of the sentence in a different way.

_Maybe it’s not referring to a child…What else grows? Plants! Plants grow!_

“The most important part of a plant to care for would be…the roots! Remember the roots?”

Renjun takes another look at the answers he has written so far. “My roots…Chinese! I need to write them in Chinese!”

As he does so, a nursey rhyme plays over the speakers as one minute is left on the clock. Jisung uses the last of his strength to start sprinting.

_♪_ _“Hickory dickory dock. The mouse went up the clock_

 _The clock struck one. The mouse went **down**. Hickory dickory dock” _ _♪_

Renjun steps back and takes a look at what he currently has on the boards.

**口 山 二**

Mouth, mountain, and two. Completely unrelated things, completely useless as they still all don't form a number.

_Could it be referring to the number of strokes for each character?_

He tries counting, but they still only came out to three numbers when he needed four. That’s when he remembers that there’s a second part of the hint.

_Perspective isn’t always right…Perspective…Isn’t right...?_

“So left?” He asks himself, going up to one of the boards and grabbing on to the edge to tilt it slightly. When they did, Renjun gasped in realization. THEY COULD ROTATE.

Guessing he probably has 30 seconds left, he quickly rotates all the boards and sees the four numbers. They resemble 0311.

Making haste to look for the correct books, he hears Jisung cry out as he starts to struggle with catching up with the treadmill as it starts to reach the maximum speed.

He scans the bookcase quickly, grabbing the ones that included those numbers in the titles before placing them in order on the bookshelf. Renjun slides in the last one just on time as the clock was about to hit zero. A piano scale in a major key plays as the ticking stops, signifying their success.

He watches the monitor in relief as the treadmill slows down and comes to a halt. Jisung was safe.

The bookshelf full of books slides away, revealing the entrance to Jisung’s room as the platforms start moving back close the gaps. Renjun watches as Jisung quickly jumps off onto the secure platform, falling over as his legs give out from all the running and from being on the verge of death. He rushes over quickly, hugging him ever so tightly and never wanting to let go.

“I’m here…I’m here…” Renjun whispers.

Jisung buries his face onto Renjun’s shoulder and sobs. “I was lying…I was terrified. I didn’t want to die…”

“I know, I know,” Renjun says as teardrops start falling from his eyes as well.

As they cry in each other’s arms, the speaker booms once more as the tiles on the floor flash into a picture of a blindfolded Jeno tied to a chair.

**“Ready for the next room?”**


End file.
